


To hold you when the sky falls down

by Elisexyz



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Bromance, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grieving Harvey, Hurt Harvey, Hurt!Harvey, Minor Character Death, What-If, protective mike, protective!Mike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-10 05:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10430676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: Harvey shows up at Mike’s place in the middle of the night, claiming that they need to work on a case that apparently can’t wait. It doesn’t take too long before Mike notices that something is off.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There are many fics dealing with Mike going to Harvey after he suffers a loss, ~~and I've probably read them all~~ , so... Why not turn the tables? Translation: I like to whump Harvey so I am going to turn everything I see into a hurt!Harvey + protective!Mike fanfiction and I regret nothing.  
>  Late season 2 setting, _High Noon_ already took place. The title has been stolen from [ this song](https://youtu.be/aYj0B71M06I?t=37).  
>  You can find me [here on Tumblr](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com), if you want.  
>  This story is also available in Chinese [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11791776), thanks to clairelight. ~~I'm screaming internally~~. 

“Harvey, _what the hell?”_ Mike mumbled, as soon as he had opened the door.

His vision was still blurry after being suddenly woken up, but he surely could distinguish Harvey standing in front of him, showing off with his combed hair and a suit that would have led him to believe that it was already eight in the morning, not fucking one am, if he hadn’t been wearing his watch.

“I didn’t think you went to sleep at ten pm like teenagers.” Harvey commented, stepping in with a huge grin on his face, at ease as if he owned the place.

“I don’t.” Mike frowned, crossing his arms. “I fell asleep on the couch because I work insane hours and my boss is a workaholic.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Harvey announced, touching the cartoon of the pizza that Mike had ordered the previous evening and that he had ended up leaving on the table in front of the couch. Harvey shot it a mildly disgusted look, then he decided to turn his attention back to Mike, who was waiting to know why exactly Harvey had decided to take over his apartment at that hour of the night.

“Get dressed, we have work to do.” Harvey announced, wearing his ‘what are you waiting for’ face.

Mike’s eyes widened. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“As an associate, I worked-” Harvey began, and Mike rolled his eyes.

“One hundred hours a day, yeah, I know.” He interrupted.

“Damn right I did. So, stop whining and get dressed.”

Mike figured that there was no use in arguing. He just hoped that whatever case Harvey had the sudden urge to work on wouldn’t take the whole night, because he had been getting so little sleep in the last few days that he wasn’t 100% sure to be able to pull an all-nighter _and_ work the following day.

He quickly got dressed – Harvey, of course, shot a disapproving look at his wrinkled suit, but it was the middle of the fucking night, Mike refused to iron it – and after washing his face he could see way more clearly. It was then that he noticed Harvey’s blood-shot eyes.

“You look like you could use some sleep too, instead of waking people up at one am.” Mike commented. He couldn’t say that he knew his boss’ routine perfectly, but he was pretty sure that he didn’t work as many hours as the associates. Apparently, Harvey had been working more than Mike had noticed. Or maybe he was just having trouble sleeping for whatever reason.

“I am perfectly fine.” Harvey quickly replied, turning his back on Mike. “Let’s go.”

 

It turned out that the case was one Mike and Harvey were supposed to work on the following day, when New York was awake and the sun was up. Why the hell had Harvey decided to start dealing with it in the middle of the night?

Yes, Beth Wilson and her company brought millions to the firm, but her lawsuit could surely wait, there was absolutely no need to take over that company _that night_.

Harvey, though, seemed completely focused on the case and he was handling it like it was matter of life or death.

Harvey always put an effort into his cases: he offered only the best to his clients and he wanted badly to win. In spite of this, Mike had never seen him so concentrated on and involved in a case so simple. It was just a matter of finding grounds for the lawsuit that would hold up in court and their opponent was barely worthy of being called as much: that was the kind of case that Harvey would have usually just handed to Mike, trusting that he would find a solution quickly.

Now, he seemed to be putting way too much effort into it.

Mike decided to let him be, working on the case too and trusting that there was an explanation for this weird behaviour. Perhaps Mrs. Wilson had threatened to find new representation if they didn’t solve it as quickly as possible. Perhaps Jessica wanted it done immediately. Perhaps Harvey had some history with their opponent – even if he found it unlikely.

They had been sitting in Harvey’s office for half an hour when Mike noticed that Harvey had been stuck on the same page of the folder for way too long.

“Something interesting in there?” Mike prompted, hoping that Harvey had found what he was looking for so that they could both go back to sleep.

Harvey didn’t quite jump at the sound of his voice, but Mike could tell that he had startled him. Harvey shot him a confused look, his eyes moving quickly around the room as he seemed to look for the answer.

“Uh- No.” He finally replied. “No, there’s nothing here.”

Harvey quickly turned the page, and he went back to reading.

Mike frowned: that wasn’t like Harvey at all. Mike could reason with him being suddenly interested in an apparently stupid case, but waking him up in the middle of the night to work on said case and then slipping into Wonderland just wasn’t Harvey’s style. It could have been blamed on exhaustion, but a) _Mike_ was still functioning, mostly; b) Harvey had always shown incredible concentration skills, both under pressure and when tired.

Mike started discretely watching him, instead of proceeding with his work, and once again Harvey kept staring at the page blankly, instead of actually working.

Something was wrong, something was _really_ wrong.

Mike closed the folder on his lap, observing Harvey for a couple of seconds more before calling his name. Once again, Harvey seemed to be taken aback by his voice.

“What’s going on?” Mike asked, directly. Harvey didn’t appreciate people sticking their nose in his personal life, so he wasn’t going to be pleased with the question either way, might as well just get to the point.

“The case is going on.” Harvey replied.

“Don’t give me that shit, you haven’t even been reading the folder.” Mike pointed out, crossing his arms and looking at Harvey in the eyes. “What is it? Why are we here?”

“To work.” Harvey insisted. And Mike had to hand it to him: he was good at lying. There was no tell that Mike picked up on, he looked at him in the eye as he spoke and nothing in his body language suggested that he wasn’t being sincere. Except Mike wasn’t stupid: actions spoke louder than words, and something wasn’t right. Plus, but this might just be suggestion, Harvey’s – still blood-shot – eyes seemed kinda lost, like he was scared and he had no idea how to deal with it.

“ _Harvey_.”

Silence fell, and Mike decided not to fill it. The fact that Harvey wasn’t insisting on defending his lie was a good sign, maybe he would tell the truth.

Harvey rubbed his face, hiding it in his palms as he bent forward, his elbows on his knees.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you up.” Harvey finally said.

Mike was tempted to crack some joke about the big bad Harvey Specter apologizing, but his voice was so thin and he sounded so _tired_ that he immediately ruled against it.

“It’s okay.” Mike reassured him. “I’d just like to know why.”

Harvey covered his mouth with his hand, his eyes on Mike’s now. And- Were those _tears_? Harvey wasn’t quite _crying_ , but his eyes were far from dry and he totally had the face of someone who needed nothing but to sob for eternity. What the hell had happened?

“My brother had a relapse.” Harvey explained, in a whisper that Mike barely heard. “Cancer. I- Uh- He had been sick when I was still- Still at law school. And…” Harvey paused, taking a deep breath and rubbing his forehead, as if searching for the right words. “He got sick again months ago, and no one told me. He- He is-”

Mike didn’t need to hear the end of that sentence. He felt his eyes filling with tears as he watched Harvey fighting to not start crying, and hell, normally he would have thought himself out of crossing the line like that, but in that moment the only thing he could think about was that Harvey was suffering a loss, just like Mike had not long ago with Grammy and years before with his parents, he knew how lonely he was feeling, just like he knew that Harvey had gone to _him_ in that moment. No irrational fear of rejection was going to prevent him from taking a little bit of that loneliness away.

Mike shifted closer, carefully putting an arm around Harvey’s shoulders to give him the time to move if he wanted to be left alone, but when Harvey slightly leaned towards him, accepting the comfort, Mike couldn’t help lifting his other arm too and pulling Harvey against his body, letting him rest his chin on his shoulder.

“I am so sorry.” He said, because even if he knew that it was an empty phrase it seemed out of place to not say it.

Harvey didn’t answer immediately, and when he talked his voice was merely a trembling whisper: “I didn’t know…”

Mike didn’t know what to answer, so he just tightened his grip, stroking Harvey’s back.

Mike knew what it was like to fear every day that a loved one could die in their sleep, but he had no idea what it felt like to suddenly find out that they had been struggling with illness and death and that they had decided to keep him in the dark. It wasn’t fair, he couldn’t help thinking. Harvey had a right to know, he _deserved_ to know.

He was perfectly aware that, even if he had known, Harvey would still be in excruciating pain right now, but at least there wouldn’t be that crushing guilt in his voice as he said that _he didn’t know_ , as if it was somehow his fault.

“I never got to say goodbye either.” Mike finally mumbled, because that was the only thing he could offer to show Harvey that, at least partially, he understood.

A couple of painful seconds passed before Harvey drew a shaky breath and Mike felt his jaw tensing against his shoulder.

“I got you.” Mike whispered, and it didn’t feel half as weird as he would have expected. “It’s gonna be okay, I got you.”

Mike didn’t want to be the one to let go, so it was pretty fortunate that Harvey decided to pull it together after Mike didn’t know how long, otherwise they probably would have stayed on that couch for the whole night.

Harvey straightened his shoulders, his eyes low and teary as he took a quick breath in an attempt to regain composure. Mike wanted to wrap his arms around him again and to shield him from the unfairness of what had happened.

“I’ll call you a cab.” Harvey said, raising his gaze and looking a little more like himself, even if it was still pretty evident that he had been _that_ close to crying a couple of seconds before.

“ _We_ are taking a cab to your place.” Mike corrected, boldly. He was basically inviting himself to stay at Harvey’s condo, but if Harvey had gone to him in the first place it meant that he didn’t want to be left alone, and Mike wasn’t about to just go home and forget what had happened. “And we are watching movies, or something.”

“I don’t need baby-sitting, Mike.” Harvey replied. That attempt at sounding annoyed was so lame that there was no way Harvey actually wanted him to go back home.

“But _I_ do need to steal some of your Scotch.” Mike announced, clapping his hands against his tights and standing up with a big, fat smile. “Come on, I’m sure Mrs. Wilson’s company won’t go anywhere.”

“You seem to have forgotten who is the boss here.” Harvey commented, but he stood up too and he was smiling slightly, which made Mike ridiculously proud of himself. “So don’t think that this means that you are authorized to be late for work tomorrow.”

 

The following morning, Mike woke up at twenty to eleven, his legs stretched on the coffee table in front of the couch and Harvey still asleep next to him, his head on Mike’s shoulder, one hand on Mike’s lap and Mike’s arm tightened around his shoulders.


End file.
